[HN Gopher] The position of a watch influences accuracy (2020)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The position of a watch influences accuracy (2020)
        
       Author : nequo
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2023-11-19 12:24 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (watchesbysjx.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (watchesbysjx.com)
        
       | aredox wrote:
       | Funny to see a fairly technical article on mechanical watches
       | rank so high on HN.
       | 
       | Yes, quartz watches are simpler and more accurate yadayada, but
       | there is an interesting engineering challenge in trying to
       | improve accuracy (1 second/day = 10 ppm!) through purely
       | mechanical means.
       | 
       | Constraints foster creativity.
        
       | formerly_proven wrote:
       | Orientation of a quartz watch also influences accuracy. Though a
       | tuning fork watch crystal is probably not good enough to observe
       | that.
        
         | ricc wrote:
         | Maybe for analog and not digital? I believe temperature affects
         | a quartz crystal more.
        
           | formerly_proven wrote:
           | > Typical crystal acceleration sensitivities will range from
           | about 1 x 10-10 per g for specially constructed precision SC-
           | cut and AT-cut resonators to the order of 10-7 per g for
           | tuning fork resonators.
           | 
           | https://www.microwavejournal.com/articles/print/7711-managin.
           | ..
           | 
           | Demonstration:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zILwgQhjC_Q#t=2m36s
        
       | HPsquared wrote:
       | Mechanical clock accuracy used to be pretty important for
       | navigation to determine longitude. A large prize was offered by
       | the British government to whoever could invent a way to
       | accurately determine longitude.
       | 
       | It's an interesting look at the high-tech world of yesteryear.
       | 
       | https://watchesbysjx.com/2019/09/john-harrison-marine-chrono...
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_rewards
        
       | mannykannot wrote:
       | The article mentions, but does not describe, tourbillons, which
       | are ingenious mechanisms to continuously rotate the escapement
       | around one or more axes, so that the effects of orientation are
       | averaged out.
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/O-6KhwwM66k?si=W0-jQ033m_kkv7-R&t=200
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-11-19 23:00 UTC)